Public Transport Improvements in Cork?

thejuggler

Just to mention that roadworks for the Green Route in Ballincollig are to start on Oct 31st. Bus Eireann has promised a new town service running from the various estates in Ballincollig to the town centre and also a new high frequency service to Cork City in 2009

http://www.buseireann.ie/news.php?id=538&month=May

This was all promised in 2007 though so I'll believe it when I see it. Higher frequencies are badly needed on this route. An hourly single decker service (when it shows up) is not sufficient for this growing suburb of 20000 plus inhabitants.

Stark

E92 wrote: »

The amount of people waiting for a bus on the Western Road never fails to amaze me(especially on Fridays), and I've seen the number 8 not stop at stops on the Western Road presumably because the single decker buses are so full they can't accomodate any more.

That timetable gap between 6pm and 7pm every evening is a joke as well. The first thing they should do is update the timetable so a full service continues at this time.

KC61

thejuggler wrote: »

Just to mention that roadworks for the Green Route in Ballincollig are to start on Oct 31st. Bus Eireann has promised a new town service running from the various estates in Ballincollig to the town centre and also a new high frequency service to Cork City in 2009

http://www.buseireann.ie/news.php?id=538&month=May

This was all promised in 2007 though so I'll believe it when I see it. Higher frequencies are badly needed on this route. An hourly single decker service (when it shows up) is not sufficient for this growing suburb of 20000 plus inhabitants.

It was indeed announced in 2007, but it was clearly flagged as part of a three year plan from 2007 to 2009.

The company has been delivering on the plans in each of Limerick, Cork, Galway and Waterford, and elsewhere, but they are at the behest of government funding which was spread over the period and also manufacturers' production schedules.

There have been a large number of new buses delivered during 2008 (mainly replacement vehicles), but the new incremental buses for 2008 are now in the process of being delivered which should result in service improvements across the network. New city buses have been delivered across the provincial cities and this will continue into next year.

The arrival of the new double decks (which should not be very far away at all) will deliver a big improvement in service to Cork, both in the city and outside on the suburban routes.

Sometimes I do wonder if it's better for Bus Éireann or indeed Dublin Bus not to announce these sort of programmes until they're ready to go, as everyone does seem to expect them immediately.

Colm R

thejuggler wrote: »

Just to mention that roadworks for the Green Route in Ballincollig are to start on Oct 31st. Bus Eireann has promised a new town service running from the various estates in Ballincollig to the town centre and also a new high frequency service to Cork City in 2009

I've said this before but a local town service for Ballincollig is pointless.

Ballincolling should have two distinct routes. Both should go right through the town and one should down the model farm road as far as college road and back again.

The other should express to town via the straight road.

Both should have a high frequency.

Regarding Bus Eireanns service in the cities, I think its shameful considering how good the service is from Ashbourne to Dublin.

thejuggler

Colm R wrote: »

Ballincollig should have two distinct routes. Both should go right through the town and one should down the model farm road as far as college road and back again.

The other should express to town via the straight road.

Both should have a high frequency.

Agreed. Also it should be considered a city service as Ballincollig is practically the city these days. A lot has changed since the 60/70s when these city bus routes were devised

Typewriter

bazzer wrote: »

Your prayers (at least some of them) may be answered. Check out this thread over on Garaiste.

New double-decker buses for Cork City have started being delivered.:D

According to that thread they are for routes 5 & 8.

invincibleirish

There's more:

According to this thread on Garaiste(http://garaiste.yuku.com/topic/6790/t/New-BE-Deckers-VWD1-10.html?page=1), that of the original allocation for Cork services paid for under T21 of 12 DD Buses, only half will make it to Cork with the other half being appropriated by BE for Dublin operations.

Seeing as these Buses were ordered explicitly for Cork services this is scandalous behaviour by BE if true.

bk

invincibleirish wrote: »

There's more:

According to this thread on Garaiste(http://garaiste.yuku.com/topic/6790/t/New-BE-Deckers-VWD1-10.html?page=1), that of the original allocation for Cork services paid for under T21 of 12 DD Buses, only half will make it to Cork with the other half being appropriated by BE for Dublin operations.

Seeing as these Buses were ordered explicitly for Cork services this is scandalous behaviour by BE if true.

And if true, it shows clearly why Cork needs to take control away from BE and create it's own bus company like Dublin Bus.

E92

Folks, this is Bus Éireann we're talking about, why the level of surprise?

I knew it was too good to be true that we'd be getting them, and now it turns out we're only getting half of what we were promised.

But sure isn't it great that Cork's public transport is neglected while a certain Senator Dan Boyle of Green party fame is objecting to the road improvements that were supposed to be taking place on the South Ring Road because there isn't enough money going into public transport in the city:rolleyes::mad:?

You'd think that at least with the Greens in Government that we'd see *some* improvement down here.

Sadly it turns out that the Greens are just Fianna Fáil by another name.

E92

The long overdue double deckers have finally arrived.

I know this because I nearly lost control of my car such was my shock and disbelief at seeing a double decker with "Bus Éireann" on the back of it.

I actually thought I was seeing things as I drove up by Turners Cross about 2 hours ago, but I was only a few cars behind one of these buses so I definately wasn't imagining it either.

Carawaystick

E92 wrote: »

The long overdue double deckers have finally arrived.

I know this because I nearly lost control of my car such was my shock and disbelief at seeing a double decker with "Bus Éireann" on the back of it.

I actually thought I was seeing things as I drove up by Turners Cross about 2 hours ago, but I was only a few cars behind one of these buses so I definately wasn't imagining it either.

Why the surprise, sher we've had double decker Bus Éireann busses in Dublin and Meath for years.....

Vic_08

Carawaystick wrote: »

Why the surprise, sher we've had double decker Bus Éireann busses in Dublin and Meath for years.....

And as far as I'm concerned Cork are welcome to take them whenever they want if it means I don't have to drive them.

At one point transferring some of these '02 and '04 buses to Cork was considered but they tried one out on one of the city's many hills and the result was less than successfull, much smoke and a tow truck were the highlights.

They are pathetically underpowered and are ponderously slow when empty, when full they barely move. Pulling out into traffic and even crossing traffic lights with short sequences can be an experience in some of them.

Why bus companies (it seems to be a common problem with many poeratorsnot just Bus Eireann) insist on buying buses with low powered engines is beyond me. I suppose on paper they look good: cheaper to buy, better fuel efficiency, low emissions, etc but in the real world that is not the case as they are thrashed to breaking point all of the time just to get them moving which leads to high maintenance costs and poor fuel efficiency.

As these new buses were ordered with Cork in mind let's hope they have enough power to cope with the hills otherwise they may end up severely restricted to the few routes without steep climbs.

Aquavid

The new buses are Volvo B9TL as opposed to the 02 and 04 ones you have driven which are the B7TL.

The B9TL is a bit better powered.

Overall, bus engines have become smaller and less powered over the past 20 years dur to fuel/emissions concerns, and EU regulations.

There are simply no buses being manufactured (for our market) with the kind of powerful engine that the Bombardiers had in the 80s.

Aquavid

Vic_08

Aquavid wrote: »

The new buses are Volvo B9TL as opposed to the 02 and 04 ones you have driven which are the B7TL.

The B9TL is a bit better powered.

Overall, bus engines have become smaller and less powered over the past 20 years dur to fuel/emissions concerns, and EU regulations.

There are simply no buses being manufactured (for our market) with the kind of powerful engine that the Bombardiers had in the 80s.

Aquavid

While that is true to a certain extent there has always been better options available than the weedy 215HP D7 engine used on the B7TL and seemingly so beloved by many operators and Dublin Bus in particular.

Add in power loss for transmission and age and you are looking at less than 20BHP per ton for a fully loaded bus, considering that even the most anaemic cars on the market today have figures of 40-50 BHP per it should be pretty obvious that they were going to be severely lacking in the acceleration and hill climbing department.

corktina

E92 wrote: »

The long overdue double deckers have finally arrived.

I know this because I nearly lost control of my car such was my shock and disbelief at seeing a double decker with "Bus Éireann" on the back of it.

I actually thought I was seeing things as I drove up by Turners Cross about 2 hours ago, but I was only a few cars behind one of these buses so I definately wasn't imagining it either.

I saw one today on the Model Farm Rd inbound from Ballincollig, I was so excited I was like Meg Ryan....:cool:



well, almost...:D

eden_my_ass

Slightly off topic, but following on from a complaint I was making a few months ago about the Ballincollig service, I was told there was a gps tracking system coming online soon so no more lazy drivers... then I found this press release from 2006, searched the bus eireann site for "gps", surprise surprise no hits!

https://194.106.151.95/site/news_centre/press_centre.asp?action=view&news_id=442

markpb

The GPS system is up and running on all the buses as far as I know. You can check the current location of buses using the Real Time Info page on the website.

Rolling it out to all the bus stops (like they suggested), would cost millions, take years and (for intercity routes) be a complete waste of money.

eden_my_ass

markpb wrote: »

The GPS system is up and running on all the buses as far as I know. You can check the current location of buses using the Real Time Info page on the website.

Rolling it out to all the bus stops (like they suggested), would cost millions, take years and (for intercity routes) be a complete waste of money.

Where did you manage to dig that page out of, I'm convinced its not linked from www.buseireann.ie and looking at that horrible url string I imagine its hidden well from prying eyes!

eden_my_ass

Ha ha ha, I think I just broke it, changed a few options and now I'm getting tomcat errors ! Way to go bus eireann

markpb

Front page, middle-left under 'View Our Online Fares' - the 'Try Our New Real Time Info' button. Dunno how accurate it is, I've never used it.

As with all these systems, the biggest benefit is to BE knowing exactly where their fleet is. The fact that customers can see how long they have to wait is a nice side-effect.

Edit: You've broken it for me too :P

eden_my_ass

markpb wrote: »

Front page, middle-left under 'View Our Online Fares' - the 'Try Our New Real Time Info' button. Dunno how accurate it is, I've never used it.

As with all these systems, the biggest benefit is to BE knowing exactly where their fleet is. The fact that customers can see how long they have to wait is a nice side-effect.

Edit: You've broken it for me too :P

I swear to christ that big shiny real time info button was not there 30 mins ago when I was looking....specsavers for me I think. Should I charge bus eireann for my software testing?? Just looked into the error, looks like they aren't cleaning up their files

"java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 6.0\work\Catalina\localhost\smartinfo\org\apache\jsp\service\jsp\error_jsp.java (There is not enough space on the disk)"

thejuggler

All the talk lately in Cork is of reducing bus frequencies and withdrawing routes so we've come a long way from improvements. Having said that the double deckers have made a great difference in improving capacity on the Mayfield, Bishopstown and Ballincollig Routes.

Ballincollig is in the middle of extensive road works at present for the green route. By the looks of it this will take at least another year.

See http://www.ballincolliggreenroute.com

I wonder will the funds be available by then to launch

A New Town Service for Ballincollig

In addition a new town service (Route 229) is planned for Ballincollig, earmarked for introduction in 2009. The service will operate between the growing number of housing estates in the residential areas of Ballincollig and Ballincollig Town Centre, where customers can link with a high frequency service to Cork.

aujopimur

Saw 3 on different routes this morning I hope passengers d'ont have to dismount and walk beside the buses for a few stops on the hills as they had to in the 70's and 80's